


Recovery of the Enslaved

by Ruby_Dragonryder, TheInkedFantasy (Ruby_Dragonryder)



Series: The Rewritten Story AU [6]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:09:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24391096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruby_Dragonryder/pseuds/Ruby_Dragonryder, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruby_Dragonryder/pseuds/TheInkedFantasy
Summary: The Master is infuriated that his precious Creator is able to escape him time and time again by hiding in the impervious Bunker. Maybe it's time that he tried a new tactic...A more drastic,permanenttactic...Welcome, Stein family, toHeck.
Relationships: Henry Stein/Linda Stein, Joey Drew & Henry Stein, Joey Drew & Linda Stein
Series: The Rewritten Story AU [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1690837
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Recovery of the Enslaved

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, everyone, to part IX of the Rewritten Story AU. I hope you enjoy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Master gets a terrible, terrible idea. 
> 
> Good luck, Steins... 
> 
> You're going to have _quite_ the ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I definitely didn't feel bad when writing this. No, that would be silly! I did this on purpose. 
> 
> Anyhoo, enjoy the show!

The Master of the studio fumed as he watched Henry and his little band of renegades dance out of his grasp yet again. It was infuriating, seeing the man he wanted so badly to be his just dance right out of reach. 

If only there was a way to...

Oh.

_Oh!_

_Oo_ , this was going to be _delicious_. 

As his grin sharpened and the darkness danced in his eyes, he thought that perhaps there was a way to get what he wanted after all... 

* * *

Alexander Boris Stein sighed as he flipped through Netflix. He was so bored! Nothing good was on. 

"Katie, I'm bored," he moaned to his twin sister, who, oddly enough, wasn't even in the mood for dancing! 

Katherine Alice Stein rolled her eyes. "Really? I couldn't tell," she snarked, too tired to get off the couch. 

"You two are so lazy," Orios Drew sighed from the kitchen as he checked for ingredients to make lunch for the family, only to find that it was time for his weekly grocery shopping trip. "Why don't you go outside and enjoy the sunshine? It's a nice Saturday and it'd be a waste to spend it inside." 

"We're too tired and bored to play outside," Alex mumbled. 

"Besides, Lucy was the one who liked to sit outside," Katie remembered somberly. 

That made them all go silent. Lucille Elizabeth Stein had been missing for a year now, her eighteenth birthday having come and gone. They had practically ignored the special date, not wanting to relive the pain of her loss all over again. 

Eventually, Orios spoke. "Well, crying over spilled milk does nothing. I'm heading to the grocery store to get more food. Any idea where Jules may be?" 

"Last I saw her, she was heading up to Mom's room," Alex said. "Said she had a bad feeling and was going to check on her." 

Orios nodded. "Well, when she comes down, let her know where I am, okay?" 

"Okay," Katie agreed. 

Orios sighed and looked at the drawings on the fridge. They were drawings of Lucy's characters done by the teen herself: Dr. Damien Fang, dragon scientist extraordinaire and master of all toon knowledge; Echo the pegasus, wise, quiet, and whimsical, Lucy's best friend; Iona the hippogriff, bubbly and sweet, reminding Orios of Julia somewhat; and Gillen the Griffin, bold and brave, always there to lend a hand. They all were remnants of the missing teen, ones they were quick to never forget, but Orios knew a secret about them. If no one was in earshot, he could talk to them, and they'd speak back. 

Looking around to make sure that no one was listening, Orios leaned in toward the paper bearing the draconic scientist. "Fang?" he whispered. "You there?" 

It took a moment for the drawing to start moving, and even then, Fang seemed flustered. "O-oh! Afternoon, Orios! How is the family?" he asked quickly. 

"They miss Lucy a ton, and I think that Linda's cancer might be getting worse, but other than that, everything's fine," Orios said as he started packing his bag for the trip to the store. Thank goodness he had finally gotten his driver's license last month, or he'd be walking home with a week's worth of groceries. "Speaking of Lucy, how is she? Adjusting well?"

"Oh, she took to being a toon like a fish to water. Loves being able to draw whatever she needs. For some reason, neither of them can draw food though... It just doesn't seem to work..." Fang turned around and bared his teeth at something Orios couldn't see. "Stop that! I'm talking to someone!" 

Orios tweaked an eyebrow. "Who exactly are you talking to?" 

"Oh, Henry and the others left me in charge of the little ones, for reasons I will never understand. At least I have Echo with me. Otherwise this would be a nightmare." Fang snapped at said little ones a few more times before turning back to Orios. "Is there an actual reason you called or are you just checking in?" 

"Just checking in," Orios agreed, "but I've noticed that our _friend_ has been a tad moody the last few weeks. Any particular reason for that?" 

"The others have been ducking and weaving out of his grasp time and time again," Fang explained. "He's annoyed that he can't seem to catch anyone, not even Henry, who seems to be his main target. Henry's been saying that he's noticed more scars on Illusion and Inky than usual. No doubt our _friend_ is taking the failure out on them." 

Orios winced. He knew how that felt. The Master had punished him several times for just being less than perfect. Failure was even worse. 

"If you see them, could you send them my condolences?" he asked. 

"I can try. Those two seem pretty set on capturing anyone who gets near enough to chat. Something about a reward if they catch the Shadow of the Studio, our good pal the Colored One," Fang told him. 

Orios nodded. "That's been going on for years. Mirage is a slippery thing. Why would they be so desperate to catch her now? Unless..." Then the realization dawned on him. The Master had separated Inky and Illusion from Joey! That could be the only reason! They must be desperate to please the Master in any way so that they could be reunited with him. The Master was using Joey, Orios's father and creator, as an incentive to get the two innocent toons to obey him. Just the thought of it made his blood boil. 

"Orios? You okay? You look a little... upset," Fang said tentatively. 

"W-what? Oh! Y-yeah, I'm fine. Just... tired," Orios replied brushing it off. 

Fang nodded sympathetically. "With Linda stuck in bed and your _old man_ not caring about anything but his precious studio, it's no wonder you're tired. You essentially hold the whole family above water!" 

Orios sighed. "Tell me about it. Speaking of which, I should probably go and buy more groceries. We're almost out." 

"Take care," Fang told him as he moved back into the position Lucy had drawn him in. 

"You too, Fang. You too," Orios said quietly as he moved through the living room from the kitchen to the front door. He chuckled softly as he saw that Alex and Katie had finally decided on a movie and were cuddled up next to each other under a blanket. They reminded him so much of him and his sister, Roxanne. It'd been almost twelve years since he had last seen her, and he missed her like heck.

"Well, maybe one day I'll see them both again," he mumbled under his breath as he headed out the door. 

Meanwhile, the Master came in from the door to the studio in his Joey guise so that no one would be any wiser. After making sure that that _wretched Orios_ wasn't around, he called the other family members in for a house meeting. 

"Hey, kids? I wanna talk to ya about somethin'," he said, trying and failing to drop the accent. Why did he always gain an accent when in this form? 

"Yeah, Uncle Joey?" Alex asked as Katie turned off the TV. 

"Come into the kitchen, you two," he said. "I need your help with something." 

"And what would that be?" asked a new voice, causing the Master to spin around. 

Rosalinda Elena Stein was walking down the stairs of Joey's home with the help of her youngest daughter, Julia Symphony Stein, looking more exhausted than ever before despite her determined look. Her cancer took a lot out of her, enough that the Master had felt sympathetic and forced her into bed. Seemed like that didn't hold her down for long. 

"L-Linda!" the Master stuttered. For reason he could never understand, he was afraid of the woman, even in her frail condition. "Y-you should be in bed! Let me help you back to your—" 

"Save it, Drew," Linda said, holding up a hand and silencing him. "This illness is going to get me eventually. I'm old and rickety and tired, and I'm not going to spend my last days in a bed waiting to die. I'm going to spend them with my children, and then when I get to heaven I'm gonna watch them grow up stronger with my husband. No way am I gonna stay in my bed when I have children to take care of." 

The Master nodded meekly, not willing to argue with her, instead staring at Julia, who ducked behind her mother to avoid his gaze. 

"Now, what exactly do you need our help with?" Linda asked. 

"I..." The Master gulped. With his luck, not only would the ink of the studio kill Linda before her cancer did, but she'd also become an angel, giving Henry another level of defense unless he found a way to separate the two. 

"Yes?" Linda asked, one eyebrow raised. 

"I was going to ask them to find a reel in the basement for me," he said finally, knowing that there was no way out of this. "An old reel from the Studio that their father made. I thought they'd like to see it." 

Linda's gaze softened. "In that case, I'll help them. I would love to see some of Henry's old cartoons again. Anything about it that will tell us that it's the one?" 

"It has a piece of tape across the side that says _The End_. Henry and I used to joke that if we ever played it, it would be the end of the series and we'd have to start it all over again," the Master said, trying _and failing_ to avoid lying about it to Linda, afraid that she might see straight through him. 

Linda nodded. "That sounds like something my husband would joke about. All right, kids, let's go find this reel." 

"Are you sure you want to go with them?" the Master asked. "There's tons of junk around and it's very dusty. I haven't been down there in years out of mind." 

"I'm sure," Linda said, ending the discussion. 

"In that case... welcome to heck," the Master mumbled under his breath as he opened the door and let them file in, making sure the lights were off so they wouldn't see the truth. 

"What was that?" Linda asked as she turned around, but the door was already shut behind them. 

"Huh. We should have asked for a flashlight," Katie remarked, squinting through the darkness of the corridor. "And where are the stairs? I thought this was a basement." 

"I've got one!" Alex said excitedly as he pulled a flashlight out of the tool belt he always wore and flicked it on. "Never know when you might need one." 

"I am never questioning your logic again," Katie decreed as they took a look at their surroundings. 

Soon after Alex turned on his flashlight, the actual lights came on, revealing a short hallway lined with posters and _a huge hole in the floor mere inches from where they stood._

"Good thing we didn't try walking in the dark," Linda muttered as she looked down the pit. "That looks like it goes down several stories." 

"This doesn't look _anything_ like a basement!" Katie huffed. 

**That's because it's not,** Julia signed as she looked around nervously, rubbing a gold bracelet she wore around her wrist. 

"What do you mean by that, sis?" Alex asked. 

She didn't answer, instead turning to her mother, who was slowing realizing what Julia already knew. 

"This isn't a basement," she whispered. "This is Joey Drew Studios. _The_ Joey Drew Studios." 

"The one you and Dad and Uncle Joey used to work at?" Katie asked in awe, looking around at the faded walls and the ink dripping from the ceiling. 

"Yes... But why would he want to bring us here... And _how_ did he bring us here?! The Studio is almost two miles away from the house... This shouldn't be possible..." Linda seemed to be at a loss for what to do. 

"Well, then let's just go back and get some real answers," Alex said as he turned back and tried to open the door. "W-wha—It's locked! That jerk locked the door behind us! We're trapped!" 

"What? Why would he want to lock us in here?" Katie asked. "I thought we were finding something for him!" 

**He lied to us. He always lies. It is his nature,** Julia signed somberly. **He just wanted to get rid of us, like he did with Lucy and Father.**

"Hold on, you're saying that Lucy's in here?!" Alex asked in surprise. 

She nodded. 

"How do you know?" Linda asked. 

**I heard him ask her to find the End reel in the basement. I waited for days, but she never came out. I was too scared to say anything in case he tried to make me disappear too. He did it once, he can do it again,** Julia said. 

"Do you think she's alive in here?" Katie asked hopefully. 

Julia nodded. 

Katie and Alex grinned at each other while Linda realized something. "How will Orios know where we are?" she asked. "How will he know not to fall to the same trap?" 

Julia shrugged and signed something that looked suspiciously like **telepathy** and **studio-home-happy** and **if-all-fail, ask-fridge** , and Linda wondered if she was interpreting that right. Sign language, after all, was not an exact science and a lot was left up to the reader's assumptions. The only part that she was sure of was, **He-come-look-me,** which Linda assumed meant that Orios would come looking for Julia no matter what. 

"All right..." Linda said finally, deciding she wouldn't ask questions.

"I'm going to jump across the gap and look for a board strong enough to be used as a bridge," Katie said decisively. 

"I'll go with you," Alex said immediately. "You may need a mechanic to judge the strength of the board." 

"Whatever you say, hammer boy," Katie said with an eye roll as she leaped gracefully across the gap with the skill of the dancer she was. 

Alex jumped as well, narrowly missing it and having to be pulled up by his twin. "Th-thanks," he mumbled once he was on solid ground. 

"Maybe you shouldn't do stupid things and I wouldn't have to rescue you, tool belt," Katie smirked. "Now, come on. Let's explore this old place and find ourselves a bridge. We need to find another exit." 

Linda could have sworn that she saw out of the corner of her eye Julia sign with very small, rigid gestures, **There is no Other Exit, only the One,** but decided to ignore it. Besides the fact that Linda knew for a fact that the studio had several exits, how would Julia know if there was an exit or not? She'd never been here before now.

 ** _She could have come here when she was_ _younger,_** her mind argued. 

_Why would she have done that?_ When _would she have done that?_ Linda argued back. 

But then she remembered an incident many, many years ago, where a little five-year-old girl with red hair and bright blue eyes went missing from her home, kidnapped, and was found in a warehouse two weeks later, terrified and covered in ink, in the arms of a young Drew, her voice having been lost forever... 

Linda shook her head. That was just a coincidence. There was no way that the ink that had covered Julia and Orios when they had found them had been from the Studio. They had been found in a warehouse for Pete's sake! It could have been a box of printer ink that tipped over and spilled on them! Besides, Joey hadn't shown his face in their lives—or his nephew Orios's—until five years later, _long_ after the incident. There was _no way_ that they could be connected. It was implausible, impossible even!

So why did she feel like something was off?

Linda was startled out of her thoughts by her seventeen-year-old twins coming back. 

"We found a bridge!" Alex beamed, holding up his end of the large board of wood that they had found. "I tested it on two chairs and put a couple of projectors on it. We're good!" 

Katie jumped across the gap and helped Alex straighten the board before walking across herself. "See? Sturdy," she said proudly. 

Linda, not quite sure that this was a good idea, looked back at Julia for her input, only to be surprised to find that she was clutching the fallen angel doll Orios had made for her years ago in the image of her father's character Razziel, one her father gave to her as a "defender from the darkness." Waving away the fact that Julia did not have that doll with her when they came in here, Julia only held it like that when she was nervous or frightened. Linda's bad feeling only grew when she saw her daughter sign with very small gestures, **We always fall.** No, that wasn't a good sign at all. 

Steeling her nerves and telling herself that it was just a plank of wood, it would hold up under her weight, Linda stepped out onto the makeshift bridge. She wobbled a bit, causing Katie to come onto the bridge with her and help her steady herself, but ultimately she relaxed when the board didn't break. 

"See?" Alex asked. "That wasn't so ba—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" 

The floor gave out on either side of the board, plunging the three closest to the hole into darkness. 

Julia contemplated staying put for a moment before jumping after them. They may need her help in this perilous environment she knew so well. 

At the bottom, their fall had thankfully been cushioned by a ton of ink that quickly drained as Alex played with the wheels on the wall. 

"Extraordinary!" he said excitedly as he played with the knobs. 

"Boys and their toys," Katie smirked. "Never saw the hype." 

Julia landed gently on her feet, her Razziel doll clutched tightly in her arms, and pulled her mother off the floor. 

"I am getting too old for this nonsense," Linda sighed as she stood up, stretching and accidentally cracking her back. "We need to find another exit _now_." 

She noticed Julia's somber look and was puzzled. Why was she so sad? Was it about the exit thing again? How did she know anything about this studio to begin with? 

"Follow me, Mom," Alex said excitedly. "I think I know where we have to go! We just follow the ink." 

"I don't think that's a—" Linda began, but was interrupted by Julia nodding her agreement. 

**Yes, we should follow the ink,** Julia began. **Maybe we will find allies who will aid us on our journey.**

Linda raised an eyebrow. What was that about? 

"Great! Follow me!" Alex beamed as he led them further into the studio, away from the entrance.

They had entered the belly of the beast.

* * *

Meanwhile, a fox turned to the demon, having seen intruders on the security cameras they had set up.

"Henry," she said, "we have guests." 

"Guests?" the demon repeated, joining her at the console to watch the four humans waltz through the studio. "We never have guests. What's going on?" 

"I don't know. What do you suggest we do?" the fox asked. 

The demon considered this. "I suppose we should find out why they're here before we drive them out. They could be here for reasons other than a simple mishap." 

"Yes, Henry. I'll send Sammy up to capture them in the Music Department." 

"Remind him to be gentle," he told her. "They're not sacrifices, they're guests, and I want to avoid toonifying anyone if I can help it." 

"Of course, Henry," the fox smiled. "I'll get right on it." 

And so the demon walked away as the fox began planning the humans' capture, wondering why the woman with the group seemed so familiar... 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Stein family is now trapped in the bowels of the studio. The question is if the demons remember the light they loved so dearly...
> 
> **Or if they have forgotten enough to try and _snuff it out..._**
> 
> Welp, that's all for now! Toodles!

**Author's Note:**

> And that's all she wrote! (For now...) 
> 
> Until next time, click the rest of the series and enjoy the floof! 
> 
> Toodles!
> 
> _\- The Inked Fantasy_


End file.
